Sunday, February 16, 2014

I have a new job. It is to create a Makerspace at my school, figure out how it will fit into and reshape curriculum from preK-12, and work closely with teachers on integrating technology into the classroom. This is really a great set of challenges, and I am very excited to get cracking!

There are some hurdles, of course, not least being my relative inexperience in matters STEM: I have spent the last 15 years teaching Modern European History.

With that said, I feel like I have some reading to do. Mostly, what I want to explore is the variety of educational approaches to Making as part of an educational curriculum and in how to teach and work with design thinking. These are new ideas for me, and I want to learn so I'm ready to work on applying them.

So far, here's what my reading list looks like, in no particular order:

Invent To Learn, Sylvia Libow Martinez & Gary Stager

The Makerspace Workbench, Adam Kemp

An Ethic of Excellence, Ron Berger

Catch The Wind, Harness The Sun, Michael J. Caduto

I Live In The Future & Here's How It Works, Nick Bilton

The Makerspace Playbook, MAKE Magazine

MAKE Magazine

I just read about Universal Traveler, by Don Koberg, which looks like a useful and fun guide to design thinking.

In any case, I'm interested to hear if anyone has any suggestions for other books that would be worth checking out to help learn more about Making, design thinking, or anything vaguely related to creating new programs in schools.